Bedding boxes are employed as on-site storage containers for holding stone and other materials used in the course of bedding, grading, and related tasks at a construction site; these materials are frequently cleaned and sorted by size, and should be kept separate from surrounding materials to maintain their purity. These bedding boxes are large, massive boxes that frequently have a frame to add strength and rigidity, and terminate in an end frame that is configured to provide a passage into which the bucket of an excavator can be wedged. When the bucket is so wedged in the opening, the boom of the excavator can be raised and the bedding box is lifted by the bucket, and can then be moved around the site.
One of the difficulties of the currently available bedding boxes is that the engagement of the bedding box with the bucket of the excavator relies largely on friction to maintain the engagement. This can cause difficulty if the bedding box is being transported over substantial distances at the site. Since the boxes are typically very massive and have a frame which adds further weight, the weight serves to maintain the frictional engagement of the bucket with the box so that such slippage is often not a problem.
Such bedding boxes would be advantageous for use at smaller sites, since the confined nature of such sites makes the containment and removal of material more desirable to avoid spillage into the surrounding areas. However, in such areas it is preferred to use smaller excavators to increase the flexibility, and a corresponding reduction in the size of the bedding boxes would be desirable both because of the limited space and so that the bedding box can be manipulated by the smaller excavators. Currently, such small bedding boxes are not available. This may result from the fact that reducing the size of the bedding boxes would reduce their weight and this, in combination with smaller buckets of the compact excavators employed, would lower the frictional forces between the bucket and the bedding boxes. Furthermore, scaling down the boxes would result in a reduction in the cross-sectional area into which materials could be dumped.
Thus, there is a need for a bedding box of smaller size that can be reliably transported by smaller excavators operating on confined work sites and yet be as readily loaded as the larger bedding boxes.